Recently Gareth and I were watching Local Hero, a great old Scottish movie. Well, 1983 isn't really old in the scheme of things, but the bad suits and telex machines were alarmingly quaint.

Anyway, there's a scene where the dude walks into the wee shop and asks for shampoo. The shopkeeper says, "Normal or Greasy?"

"Greasy?" I said, "Did you really call it Greasy over here?"

"Oh aye," said Gareth. His eyes became misty, recalling the distant days when he still needed shampoo. "Dry, Normal or Greasy."

"I see. It used to be Dry, Normal or Oily in Australia."

Married couple banter is so scintillating.

But seriously, whatever happened to Oily and Greasy shampoo? You just don't get that anymore. Somewhere along the line the marketeers decided that we were too delicate for such a direct and nasty label, so it was softened down to Frequent or Regular Use.

Personally I have wispy, pathetic locks so I look for words like Fine or Volume or Body. What else can you do, really, when there's ten dozen different brands with basically the same ingredients? I sift through the crowd looking for the most convincing copywriting, the most reassuring adjectives, the biggest ego boost. Hmm, this one claims bounce and shine but this one promises a just-out-of-the-salon feeling. What to do? WHAT TO DO!?

(TANGENT:  Dove and their Real Beauty Campaign. Yes, that's all very dandy to use Real Chicks in your advertising. I know you're trying to make me feel good about myself, Just The Way I Am. But somehow I'm even less inclined to buy your stuff because it's like you're that bitch in the playground at school who says nice things to me so I'll do her bidding. Like, you don't really think I'm pretty, do you? You're only saying it so I'll buy your goodies. Ha ha ha)

The other day I was shopping for groceries online and "browsing" the shampoo "aisle". It's impossible to do my usual label analysis because all you have is a fuzzy JPG of the bottle. So I randomly clicked on Garnier Fructis Body & Volume. It was only when it arrived the next day that I saw the soul-crushing subtitle, FOR FLAT, LIFELESS HAIR.

Boycott! Boycott!

On the way to the train station yesterday I went by a posh clothing boutique and there was a mannequin in the window wearing a very lovely frock. Flattering-to-redheads green, flattering-to-dumpy-gal wrap style, and 50% off! But I was running late so I carried on.

I was meeting an excellent Internet Friend for the first time, and even though I have lost count of the number of excellent Internet Friends I have met in person over the past decade I still get ridiculously nervous every time. My teeth chatter and my face burns and I have to go wee about twenty-seven times. I was early so I fiddled with my hair and pretended to be casually texting Other Friends on my phone which is difficult with gloves on. Mfhuul grffc mgigu.

Anyway, my Internet Friend arrived and instantly she was as Excellent as I knew she'd be so I relaxed and we headed for a coffee shop. I was feeling quite cool and calm as I put down my bag and removed my hat and plucked off the gloves and unwound the scarf and finally… unbuttoned my coat.

"Oh, hey!" she said, "Your zip is undone."

Just. Bloody. Brilliant.

Really must stop getting dressed in the dark.

Later on I walked past Posh Boutique again with vague intentions of trying on the frock. Sure enough the mannequin was in the window, exactly as I'd left her; still wearing the lovely green dress with a strand of sparkly beads draped around her headless stump of a neck.

There was one difference, though. The flattering V-neckline now plunged considerably further than it had that morning. How do I put this? THE TITS WERE HANGING OUT OF THE DRESS.

Had someone asked to see the frock, then saleslady put it back in the window in a great hurry? Or had some bored husband made the adjustment while waiting for his missus to try on her 39th outfit? Either way, two white and shiny plastic boobs were beaming out at the street and entertaining all the passers-by.

Suddenly I lost all desire to try the dress on; after giving an eyeful of undies to someone I'd just met, it just looked too dangerous.

I angsted over sunflower seeds in Holland and Barrett today. Do I get the Normal ones or the Organic? Can there really be a difference in such a tiny little seed? And the organic ones were £1.20 more expensive than the Normal ones. That’s like $3 Australian! Does it really matter when I’m going to drown them with yogurt and blueberries anyway? What do I do? What do I do?

My mate had the same dilemma this week when buying some eggs. These two little old ladies were cluttering up the aisle and debating.

“You cannae get those eggs, hen! You’ve got tae get the organic!

“The organic! They’re so expensive!”

“Aye but you’ve got tae think of the poor wee chickens! No one buys those other eggs anymore.”

My friend likes to save a penny and he normally grabs the budget ones, but now he stood there in a bind. How could he get Morrisons Extra Val-U eggs after that? And think of the poor wee chickens. Fine then, little old ladies; you win! He plucked a free range box from the shelf.

“See!” hissed the old lady, “I told you!”

There’s a great article in the Observer today about how we’ve all become neurotic and fearful about food. We’re freaking out about fair trade, organics, trans fats and additives, but on the other hand we’re slaves to the supermarket and eat more fast and processed food than ever. These days not even a wee wrinkly lady in Scotland can boil an egg without being tortured with guilt.

I finally grabbed the non-organic seeds and tried to ignore the niggling guilt for buying them at this faceless national conglomerate instead of the local independent health food store. And I really hate Holland and Barrett; they seem to have formed some sort of alliance with that withered crackpot, “Doctor” Gillian McKeith. For those outside of the UK, McKeith is the star of You Are What You Eat, a series in which she visits some of Britain’s unhealthiest folks. She rifles through their cupboards, examines their stool samples, yells at them, then leaves them with a juice extractor and whole lot of wholegrains. Four weeks later she returns and they’re wearing smaller pants and the glowing smiles of the converted. She has educated the nation and made a killing with her cookbooks and Living Food Love Bars.

Now every shelf in Holland & Barrett is plastered with signs with her gaunt little face endorsing various items. Gillian Sayz, Eat brazil nuts! They’re full of selenium! Gillian Sayz, Buy These Aduki Beans! They’ll make you regular or horny or something. Gillian Sayz, Eat Quinoa! If it’s good enough for the Incas it’s good enough for you, fatty!

I really resent that she endorses my sunflower seeds. I don’t want people thinking I’m only buying them because I saw them on Channel 4, or because some woman whose personality was clearly flushed out in her last colonic told me so. I’ve been eating sunflower seeds for years, dammit! I feel like one of those righteous Radiohead fans who curse lowly losers like me who only got into them after OK Computer when they’ve liked Radiohead since Pablo Honey, AND NOT JUST THE ‘CREEP’ SINGLE, YOU LATECOMING SCUMBAG.

So, and this bit has nothing to do with the above, I lined up to buy my non-organic chain store trendy sunflower seeds behind a young mum with a blue-eyed baby in a pram. It gurgled and smiled at me and I smiled back in that uneasy way I smile at babies because I know they can sense my fear.

A little old lady lined up behind me with a carton of rice milk and some organic ginger biscuits. There will never be a shortage of little old ladies in Scotland. “He’s a nice wee bairn,” she said, “Isn’t he?”

“Oh yes, he’s quite cute.”

“You see a wee face like that and you wonder how people can be so cruel to ‘em.” She clucked her tongue and shook her permed head.

“To who?”

“To bairns!”

“Umm… yes.”

“And they ARE you know,” she glared. “Cruel! Some people are very cruel to bairns. It’s a real shame.”

“Oh… aye.”

Homesickness disguises itself in the most ridiculous forms. Today I had a pang of longing for catalogues. The ones that choke your mailbox on a Sunday morning – K Mart, Big W, Harvey Norman – all the big stores trying to woo you into their bargain lairs. Growing up on a farm meant we had a P.O. Box instead a postman. So no catalogues! The Mothership would poach them from friends and we'd fight over them even if they were a month old. I'd spend hours gawking at all those crazy discounts; the weird prices like $5.49 or $9.87. There were horrid appliqued frocks, cordless drills, potted ferns and The World's Largest Cotton Undies. I loved the models with their expressions permanently set to "delighted". Toddlers tottered across the page with their pudgy fists in the air. Women with sensible bobs grinned despite their elasticated skirts. The blokes, chisel-jawed and wavy-haired, all looked like the Gift Shop models on Sale of the Century. It was so unsettling to see them in polo shirts and khaki shorts, instead of besuited beside the BMW and Cash Jackpot. The Retravision and Harvey Norman catalogues enthralled me with their gleaming whitegoods and small appliances. Multi-disc CD players were all the rage in the mid-90s, so each stereo had a little logo indicating its capacity. I'd frantically flip through the pages trying to find the beefiest machine. 3 discs! 5 discs! 10 discs! Sweeeet! It was no wonder I ended up with a 25-disc changer for my 21st birthday. Which is really the stupiest invention ever, for by the time you feed it you can never remember what you put in. Best of all were the fridge and freezer pages. I would stare longingly at the carefully styled shelves, trying to pick my Dream Fridge based on its contents. I loved the rows of condiments and posh bottled water, the celery lounging in the crisper, the watermelon wedge smiling on a platter. And there were always elaborate parfaits in tall glasses. I wanted a fridge with parfaits, dammit. And a freezer full of Ski frozen yogurt. They always had Ski frozen yogurt! We had half a cow and Home Brand Choc-Coated Ice Creams in our freezer. Meanwhile in the fridge, vegetables turned to liquid alongside the brown orange juice and last year's salad dressing. I daydreamed that somewhere out there, these pristine perfumed devices really existed. You just don't get catalogues like in the UK. I'll be home in three months, would someone save a few for me?

One of the joys of British supermarkets is the Supermarket Magazine. Free with any purchase, they have all the features found in normal trashy magazines like fashion shoots, recipes and sycophantic reader letters. Sure, all the clothes are from the store and all the recipes are painfully rubbish (Example: Take one slice of OUR BRAND Ham and one slice of OUR BRAND Cheese and place between two slices of OUR BRAND White Sandwich Loaf) but it's free, and there's coupons in the back for 20p off OUR BRAND Instant Coffee.

The Reader Letters are particularly entertaining. There's a lot of people out there who'll say anything for a £20 Tesco voucher or perhaps their lives really were changed by a supermarket. The prize-winning letter in this month's Somerfield magazine was from Mrs C Barker of Hampshire, who sent in a photo of her dog Jack who is apparently fond of bringing in the shopping 'tween his slobbering jaws.

But then in a bizarre twist, this piece of paper been stapled to the page, apparently a last minute addition after the magazine had been printed.

April 2005 Edition – Somerfield Magazine – Star Letter £20 Winner
The star letter on page 15 of the April edition of Somerfield Magazine shows a dog carrying in food for it's owner. This is a lighthearted letter.
Somerfield do not recommend allowing any pet to carry food or to have access to food at any time for hygiene reasons. Pets should be excluded from your kitchen and all work surfaces cleaned before food preparation.

So people, take that ten kilo bag of spuds from Fifi's fangs, tell Patches to spit out the loo roll. Dogs of the world must know their place and stick to fetching newspapers and slippers. Has the world gone bloody mad?